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We peel the labels off and put the bottles into the recycling bin. Glas and most plastic is recycled here.As for paperwork, we keep a file for tax purposes and shred the rest. The shreded paper goes into recycling.

i save some bottles to put seeds in for next year's garden and some for craft projects (after they have been washed and dried of course). the rest I just pitch in the garbage. LOL I'm open about being poz and I'm too poor to have my identity stolen, so I've never given this a thought before.

I I just pitch mine in the trash. Never occurs to me to peel off a label or anything.

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"Many people, especially in the gay community, turn to oral sex as a safer alternative in the age of AIDS. And with HIV rates rising, people need to remember that oral sex is safer sex. It's a reasonable alternative."

I just pitch them, I don't even pull the labels off of them, there really isn't much info printed on the bottles for me to worry about identity theft, and I really don't care if someone knows where I live, never worried about this before......

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"it's so nice to be insane, cause no-one ask you to explain" Helen Reddy cc 1974

I dunno. I live in a building of about 15 apartments and we share trash containers in the courtyard. Also, we are expected to recycle paper. My city doesn't have recycling of this kind of plastic. Anyone who wants to snoop into my mixed trash among the potato peels and yucky yucky, far as I am concerned, gets what they deserve - probably more information than they would ever want, as a good Swiss. Swiss don't pry. If you are concerned about privacy it does seem prudent to take care how you trash "the evidence." But do you share containers with neighbors??

I'll throw the paper boxes of the pill bottles in the paper bin. But I don't throw in anything with credit card numbers, so go figure.

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ďFrom each, according to his ability; to each, according to his needĒ 1875 K Marx

I just toss them in the trash. Also toss in all the injection waste except for the syringe and needles. Those go in the Little Red Safety Box. I turn that in at my doc's office. If I had started drugs earlier I might have done some things different. But by the time I had to start Atripla, etc., I was already pretty open about being HIV+. Do what makes you feel comfortable. That's always the best direction to go.

Don't forget about repurposing. The larger ones are especially great in the work shop. Use them to hold paint left over from projects. They seal really nicely and all you need to do is dab paint on the lid for quick reference. The large clearer ones are great for keeping thing sorted and are easy to see what they contain.

I currently have about 2 grocery bags full of them so I decided to start trashing them. We don't have a recycle program here. I guess I've never worried about the labels. I'm not worried about my name and address being on them as they already have that information if they're at my home going through my trash. As far as showing what meds I'm on? I'm way past that point of caring. There was a time though that I kept everything in our safe for fear of privacy. Now my bottles all just hang out on a shelf by my bed.

Wolfie

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Complacency is the enemy. Challenge yourself daily for maximum return on investment.

Edited to add: my apologies for posting in LTS. Somehow I thought this was in Living With.

« Last Edit: February 20, 2012, 11:51:49 PM by Rev. Moon »

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"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

I can't remove the labels from my med containers, so use a permanent marker to black out the info on the label, and then toss them in the recycle bin.

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"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." - Butch Hancock, Musician, The Flatlanders

Can someone tell me what the point of doing such thing is for? All the label has of a source for identity theft is your name. There's no mailing address or social security number. You don't think someone can access your name in some easier manner?

Some might live in large apartment buildings and not want the staff or nosy neighbors to know that person's HIV status.

For me I could care less. Anyone who thinks I'm "bad" because of my status is someone whose opinion means nothing to me. They are rather sad people who try to make other people's lives miserable so their life has some meaning.

Hi all, I live on Cape Cod. We don't have a landfill; the closest one is over four hours away, so trash is expensive. We recycle almost everything, but with the cost of diesel that's also getting expensive. We take old computers & small appliances to one of the non-profit thrift shops in town, or the transfer station where we can swap them for things others are discarding.

I don't blackout the labels, we have probably the oldest ASO in the country & there's virtually no stigma here. Besides, my straight & lesbian neighbors volunteer at the ASO & see me coming in to see my case manager. The ASO is so well accepted that it is the contact point for heating assistance (HEAP) for the whole town gay & straight, unless they want to drive an hour to the county seat, & many of the people on assistance don't have cars.

We also use well water; the town water system runs on well water. So we don't flush old meds down the drown. Take care, Deibster

Well, not wishing to spoil the beauty of the desert, I recycle as much as I can, including the med bottles that are recyclable. I don't remove the labels. Most of the people wouldn't know what the medication was for anyway, and those that figure it out are of no consequence to me.

Those med bottles which are not recyclable, I reuse for other things, like vegetable seeds for my garden.

Please consider this next time before adding another wing to your art project. Thanks.

NY, as someone who was not diagnosed before 1996, you should not be posting in the Long Term Survivors forum. Please read this forum's Welcome Thread. Also, please read any other Welcome threads where they appear, as some other forums have posting restrictions as well.

We all understand you meant well, but for one, it was a joke as Miss P pointed out (none of those pills are hiv meds anyway) and two, most LTS have been around long enough to know what to do with unneeded meds.

Please do not post in this forum again. Thank you for your cooperation.

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts